The secret I loved to keep
by LobbyLane
Summary: Max gets angry... Leo stopps talking. And Roger and Carmen discover something no one ever dared to think about... A story I had in mind for quite a while. Leo/Max Slash


"The deal was simple: Never change a running system. Just stick to it. We've both agreed to it years ago. It works out fine the way it is. So why should we change anything? What the hell do you expect?"

"I thought maybe there was a chance.."

"A chance for what? What is it you're fantasizing about in you weird little mind?"

"The one chance you might have become someone else in the past few years...I thought maybe you started opening up to me as I did to you... and then maybe the hope you'd understand.."

"Understand! How on earth could I possibly understand? How could anyone?"

"Yeah. … I'm the fool"

'Three weeks and still no sign of a normal behavior. He doesn't look at me. He doesn't talk to me. Most of the time he acts as though I wasn't there at all. Is this fair?' Leo thought, watching Max from the corner of his eyes. He sat there, seemingly miles away, continuing his deafening silence.

Leo looked down, pretending to get through the pile of papers lying in front of him. He'd expected Max to be against it. But he never dreamed of it taking the shortcut to a fight that would cause the both of them not talking anymore. It was so strange, so bizarre and most of all so unnecessary.

Max did his very best ignoring him. Whenever Leo walked in the office, he wouldn't even lift up his head. When Leo sat there completely silent, Max would push some paper over to him from time to time but remained silent as well. Only once, Leo grew so mad at him, he followed the urge to stand up and scream until there wasn't any breath left in him. Still, Max only flinched for a short moment, looked at him for a second in disbelief and then continued whatever he was doing before. It was enough to drive you up the wall. And Leo certainly could cope with that. He didn't know how to react. Sure, he thought about breaking this everlasting silence by just taking the first step and talk to Max himself. But he couldn't do it. He simply couldn't. Why? He wasn't able to tell. Glancing inside he thought maybe he was too scared of yet another fight. Even the idea of Max starting to scream at him made him shiver. But now...

He wished he had said something. Even if the biggest fight both of them ever had in their longtime friendship was about to come up, at least there would've been a sign of recognition from Max.

"You what?" Carmen and Roger screamed in a very unnatural height. "But you two ...you split up. That was years ago..!"

Leo nodded. "I know that. But I thought,...well, it seemed like a nice treat to get involved once more."

The older couple still stared at the young man in disbelief. Carmen was the first to find his voice again. "Involved? In what? What the hell were you expecting? That she'd take you back?"

"I dunno" Leo admitted. "I thought...I wanted to let her know there are no hard feelings about all that happened. And, after all, it's just a job...you know...working together."

Roger and Carmen just shook their heads simultaneously. "And what comes next? What if it doesn't work out? What if there are hard feelings? What if you just haven't recognized them yet? What..." Roger sighed for a short moment and caught himself again. "Leo... What about Max?"

'Here we go' Leo thought. The one topic he's been trying to avoid. The one question he dreaded, for it would lead to many many more questions. "What about him?"

He never noticed he could sound so cold, even though he was shaking inside. "It's none of his concerns whom I work with." He felt anger arising inside. Bringing up Max was a horrible thing to do. And they kept doing it all the time. Roger and Carmen somehow evolved their strange thoughts around the idea of Leo being completely lost without Max. He knew that, even though he never spoke about it before. He was certain they noticed their weird behavior lately and was relieved neither Carmen nor Roger pierced him with questions until now. But this changed now rapidly.

"Well, I thought you were partners?" Carmen said quietly.

"Yeah, business-partners" Leo answered a little annoyed. "So, I can make decisions of casting someone as well as he can, can't I?"

Roger, however, looked at him in shock. "He doesn't approve at all now, does he?"

"What?"

"Oh, come on, Leo!" he raised his voice. "Do you think this 'Not-Talking-Nonsense' both of you are up to for weeks now, maneuvered its way around us?"

"No...no, I was sure you must've noticed" Leo answered and looked to the ground. Then he sighed. "Well, yes... you're right! He doesn't approve..." He tried to avoid their gaze. "Not at all."

Carmen took a step further to Leo and gently put his hand on Leo's shoulder.

"Leo, you must admit, bringing Ulla back into game isn't fair... Not for yourself and...well, not for Max for that matter."

"But.."Leo began, but Carmen shook his head. "She did hurt you, didn't she?"

"You were so down when she left you two years ago and it took you an eternity to get over it" Roger jumped in. " And now, you really want to go through all that again?"

"It's not like that" Leo interrupted. "I'm not feeling the urge to start a relationship with her again. It's just... I feel...I feel I owe her..!"

"Owe her what?" Roger asked after listening to all of that.

"Owe her something true" Leo answered. I must've been a terrible husband."

He felt their eyes on him.

"Well, why else would she have run off like that? I guess, I sort of want to apologize in any ways. Show her that it wasn't my intention to hurt her."

Leo turned around and rushed out of the theater, leaving Carmen and Roger behind him.

"He still didn't get over this" Carmen said quietly. Roger nodded. "I thought he forgot by now." Carmen looked at him worried. "Roger?"

He simply nodded. "I know" he said. "We gotta talk to Max!"

"What do they know?" Leo thought. He was breathing hard. His steps grew faster. He was running through the crowded streets without even the slightest clue where we wanted to go. "She must've left me for a reason. There must be something I've done wrong. It's no big deal. I just want to make it up to her. All I want is showing her I never wanted to hurt her."

He stopped and leaned against a nearby wall. His body was shaking. Whether out of exhaustion or out of anger he couldn't tell. "Not fair... to Max? Why the hell would he care? He couldn't stand her. From the moment she was with me he literally hated her" he told himself. "It's because he's more selfish than anyone else I know... He couldn't get her, so no one else should." Leo closed his eyes. He almost hated himself for thinking that way. He used to see the good in people after all. And what was he thinking? Max was...well, Max. He was his friend and partner in business. He owed him everything. But come to think of it... He hadn't really changed much over the past few years. Whenever he saw an advantage for himself he would let Leo fall as quick as he could. Thinking about it, Leo knew this was true. He opened his eyes again and raised his head.

"He simply must understand" he thought. He tried to convince himself that this was the right way to handle it. Only problem was, he couldn't get rid of that feeling. A feeling of shame. It felt like betrayal. Again. But he was so sure, it wasn't. But why did it hurt so much to think of it?

Max felt like he could slam that boy. This idiot. How could he do this? Bringing her back. After all she'd done to him. After all the struggle he had getting her away from Leo. It was over. He knew that. Leo was recovering after she left. He was his own self again. And now this. Worst of all, he thought no one would ever mention this old story again. But it seemed his past was chasing him now. Max opened the doors to the balcony of his office and stepped outside. He leaned over the balustrade staring into the streets. And now? Leo didn't talk to him anymore. "You old fool, Bialystock" he thought and sank his head. "You didn't dare to say anything anymore as well." He knew exactly why. He was scared. For the first time in his life, he -Max Bialystock- was scared of something. Saying anything would have led Leo to a lot of questions. If he'd just agreed to bring Ulla back... No. Not an option! The possibility of him finding out was too risky.

"Are you going to clear this mess up?" he heard a voice from behind him.

Like shaken awake, Max whirled around. "God damn-it, Roger" he said. "Can't you at least say something when you enter here? You're giving me a heart-attack."

Roger folded his arms. That look! Oh, Max knew for sure what lied ins tore for him now.

"Listen, Roger. I know what you're gonna say" He began. "But I can't..."

"Well, you must" the taller man interrupted. "Leo's confused, angry and God knows what else."

Max shook his head. "No no no! You know what happened" he said. "How could I possibly tell him that?"

Max went inside again, passed Roger without another look and sat down on the brown leather couch in the middle of the room. Roger sighed and followed him.

"Listen to me" he sat down beside Max. "I know you had something to do with Ulla disappearing like that, but I actually never understood why."

"You had something to do with it?" Carmen closed the door behind him.

"Oh come on. Did you bring the whole neighborhood?" Max yelled a little annoyed.

"Don't get abusive. All I want is to help the both of you."

Max put his hand to his head and turned away from them. He took a deep breath.

"Why didn't you tell him?" Roger asked after a while.

"Why should I? He saw what she was like" Max answered almost immediately.

Carmen's eyes grew bigger. "Would anyone be so kind as to explain yourself?"

Roger turned to look his partner directly into the eyes.

"He sort of split them up."

"What?"

"Yeah, it's true. He planted this idea of touring into that Swedish Blonde's head" Roger said quietly.

"Oh Come on now. I didn't do that" Max turned around again. He seemed ashamed.

"Well, yes you did." Roger replied. "You did tell her that was a good idea. And haven't you been the one giving her the opportunity to audition for these productions?"

"Oh, come on. That's a bit of a stretch!" Carmen interrupted. He sat down on the couch, crossing his legs. "Getting cast and making progress on stage isn't exactly a bad thing. Why would that make her split up with Leo?"

Roger crossed his arms and shook his head. His mouth formed a slight smirk. "Oh, there's more...much more. Believe me, Darling!"

Carmen's eyes widened and he slowly stared from Roger to Max. "What else?"

Max sighed. He ran his hand through his hair for a moment, then looked up at Carmen again.

Carmen simply stared back at him for a moment. Then he seemed to realize...

"Oh" he replied. The younger man was sitting upright now.

"Oh?"

"Um, I thought the whole introducing her to other male actors did make them split up" Carmen answered to Max's gaze.

"What?" Roger was confused. He looked pretty dumb for a moment, but quickly collected himself again. "OK, whoa... How many stories are existing here? I mean...Max?! Which story is true now?"

"Both are!"

"What?" Carmen and Roger tended to sound pretty much the same once in an outrage. Max heard them do it several times before.

"Truth is..." he started staring out of the window again; avoiding their eyes. "... I actually introduced her to many actors over the last years. All of them tall and handsome guys. Until there was this dancer. A very large beautiful guy with golden hair. I knew he was exactly the guy she would fancy. And she did. You could see it. The way she looked at him was telling everything. And when he told me he was cast for this tour-production abroad, I tried to convince her to go for that goal."

He didn't dare to look at them. He knew they didn't believe what they'd been just listening to. He knew he shocked them beyond all measures.

It was foolish of him. He cursed the day Roger came into the room and heard everything he told Ulla about his touring ideas for the new "Broadway-Star". Even though he could convince Roger, he was only thinking about Ulla and he career, he knew for sure Carmen did notice the numerous amount of slender and good-looking men he sent over to her dressing room every other day. Both of them asked him about it, of course. And both of them believed what he said, Max was sure of that. But now... It sounded so mean, so devilish repeating the whole story altogether. And Max sensed what would be the next question...

"Uh,...Why didn't Leo go with her?"

There it was. That damn question. He knew he had to answer. He knew they would never believe a made-up story. And, being quite frank, nothing he could think of sounded at least plausible to himself...How on earth should he convince them?

Max leaned his head on the window pane. He closed his eyes again. He could hear his own heart pounding in his ears. The sounds from the streets outside sounded muffled. It seemed like ages until he found his own voice to answer again:

"Because... because I told her it was inhibiting to bind herself only to one producer... That...that she could achieve so much more working with other people...especially if they were as famous as the ones she'd meet abroad..."

He heard Carmen gasp slightly, whereas Roger seemingly stopped breathing at all.

"You...did what?" Roger said after a while. "Max...!"

He sounded so shocked, so accusing and so unbelieving.

"I..." Max started anew. "I reminded her that being alone with that dancer she fancied so much would be a great bonus to all this..."

He could hear Carmen getting up. His footsteps were fast and forcing..and they grew louder.

He could feel a hand grabbing his shoulder, forcing him to turn around. Carmen put his other hand on Max's other shoulder and his grip forced him to look straight into Carmen's eyes. Max didn't dare to move. He didn't even dare to breath. He stared into these furious eyes, he had never seen like this before.

"Listen...I..."

The slap in his face was so unexpected, Max hardly noticed what happened at first. He stumbled a few steps backwards looking at Carmen in shock, but turned his head down in an instant.

Carmen on the other hand looked as though he would explode any moment. He was furious.

"How could you?...How on earth could you do something like that?" he screamed.

Roger ran towards them, holding Carmen back so he couldn't attack Max once more. He was struggling with Roger to let go of him.

"Carmen...Darling...Calm down" Roger raised his voice.

"No...no...Leo was right" Carmen looked at his partner in a desperate way. "He indeed isn't caring about anything. He did such a horrible thing...just out of jealousy... because... because Leo's had something he couldn't get." He turned to address Max again, who still wasn't looking at the two of them.

"Did he say that?" he thought by himself. The thought of Leo thinking something like that, caused a painful feeling inside of him. He never thought he could so much be in Leo's disfavor. He thought Leo trusted him. He thought they were friends. And he was so certain his partner hadn't had a clue he caused their divorce.

"Max?" Roger and Carmen turned silent. Something wasn't right. There was something about Max, half bended over the couch with his hand holding the red side of his face and a look of deep despair that almost scared them. They'd never seen anything like pain on Max. A pain of another kind... almost as if he was suffering deeply within...

Carmen and Roger let go of each other and looked confused.

"Max?" Roger asked softly after a while. He stepped a little closer and solicitously placed his hand on Max's back. "Max?... Why did you do that?"

Max opened his eyes again, but was still staring at the ground. He felt tears in his eyes and he knew Roger and Carmen would most likely have noticed them as well...

"Because... I love him."

_~to be continued~_


End file.
